This week has been particularly hectic for me (thus the two whole days of silence!) and I have to admit it’s been tempting to slip into an all too familiar routine: grabbing some takeout on the way home and parking myself in front of the TV with my laptop and attempting to play catch-up all night. But I’ve been resisting and I’d like to share my secret weapon, NoTakeOut.com.

This site provides daily menus and detailed instructions (you know how I love detailed instructions) for cooking a homemade meal. The instructions are the best part in my opinion. They provide a “game plan” that tells you what to do starting from when you walk in the door:

It’s a perfect resource for the week when you simply forgot to make a weekly menu. Just look up today’s meal as you’re headed out of the office. Print off the grocery list and instructions and stop by the grocery store on the way home instead of the drive through. You can subscribe to get the daily meal in your inbox and the site is fairly easy to read on a smartphone if you want to go green and avoid printing.

And as an added bonus, they provide a wine pairing suggestion just in case it’s been that kind of day.

Organic vs. Conventional? Local? Seasonal? Picking out produce has gotten much more complicated over the past couple of years. It has also gotten a lot more expensive. So what do you do? Go for the cheapest and risk ingesting nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that farmer’s have added to their soil? Or better yet some pesticide residue along with a variety of different chemicals used to kill the plant’s natural bacteria, which actually enhances the plant’s ability to synthesize and absorb nutrients? What if you want to make the greener choice and buy local, but it’s not organic?

Meet the dirty dozen… (It has actually been adapted to 15 instead of the original 12)

These are ranked by their “score,” 100 being the highest with the largest amount of pesticides present. So lessen the stress of your decision and stick to buying strictly organic when it comes to these 15, and the rest, opt for the closest in region, the most in season for your region, or whatever just looks too darn tasty to pass up!

As motivated as you may be at the beginning of the year to eat healthier and stay (or get) in shape you quickly lose momentum as real life sets in and you just can’t seem to find the time or $$. Grabbing a prepackaged lunch or getting take-out is much faster and less stressful than say, preparing a salad to take to work, but it doesn’t have to be! To go along with Katie’s weekly menu tip from last week, take some time out on Sunday to not only write down meals and shop for the ingredients but to partially prepare most of them too!

Once home from the grocery store I immediately rinse and pat dry my greens. Buying loose greens is significantly cheaper than buying the prewashed, precut, and bagged greens and only takes a couple extra minutes to get ready. I cut them up (or rip by hand) and store in glass containers like the ones pictured (available at Target, Walmart, HomeGoods, etc.). I cut up celery, carrots, and bell peppers into dipping size sticks for a separate container. I then dice up onions, carrots, celery, bell pepper and store together in a smaller container. Bite-sized strawberries, oranges, grapes go into yet another container. Now, in the morning when I want to make that awesome heaping salad of fresh goodness I just grab some greens, throw on some vegetable medley along with a toss of the fruit combo and voila, ready to go in 30 seconds or less! I also have the handy sticks ready to grab and go as a snack by themselves or to pair with a container of hummus. Soups, dipping sauces, even smoothies can be prepared over the weekend and will last up to 5 days stored in the fridge in an airtight container or jar.

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